


Dance

by tiptoe39



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Halloween, M/M, Multi, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-13
Updated: 2010-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-09 10:41:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiptoe39/pseuds/tiptoe39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Halloween at the Carnival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [](http://senor-coconut-1.livejournal.com/profile)[**senor_coconut_1**](http://senor-coconut-1.livejournal.com/) for the beta.

Halloween at the Carnival.

Lydia is a belly dancer in veils, Mata Hari. She slinks through the crowd, for once her skin not only Samuel's to touch. Samuel has put his seal of approval on it by spinning her into the arms of Edgar as the dance started. Those who weren't at the carnival this time last Halloween let out a gasp. Others simply smile. They remember last year, at the height of the revelry, Samuel and Joseph feasting on her like twin beasts. She was not the only one. And she won't be the only one tonight.

Nathan wanders through the mess and feels more lost than ever. But when Lydia's waist slides enticingly over his, when she bends her head to gaze at him alluringly, he forgets that there's a gap between who he is and who he's supposed to be. Tonight it doesn't matter. She tells him as much, with her lips as much as with her words. His arms folded around her, he leads her into the whirling dance.

On All Hallows Eve the ghosts return, and so it is with the carnival that lies just outside of time. Anyone whose lives have been touched by the carnival return to it, as if in a dream, and let their souls dance free.

Tracy arrives, and, shimmering with water at the edges of her skin, she flows through the crowd. When she looks around she thinks she sees the child Jeremy breathing life into each carefully etched pumpkin, at home at last. She smiles. The pumpkins laugh with crooked teeth.

Peter's lost and powerless at the edge of the tent, but when he steps inside he feels the echoes of old powers at his fingertips. Lightning crackles through the night at the twitch of his fingers; he thinks he might be floating just a little above the ground. The suspicion turns to certainty when Samuel applauds and walks toward him, looking up at him the whole way.

Rebecca slides her arms around Jeremy, and he looks down to see nothing embracing him. If he can't see her, she says, his body won't recognize there's someone there he could hurt. Flimsy logic at best, but this is Halloween, and just because everyone knows it's a mask doesn't mean you can't hide behind it. His fingers wander over bottom and breasts, the teenage temptations that have been more forbidden to him than to most, and it's an easy choice to leave behind the pumpkins to dance with air. His only worry now is that without her hips to hide it, his eagerness is all too visible. It's lucky nobody's looking.

Hiro feels healthy and reinvigorated. He holds Charlie's hand and leads her into the dance. They'll face death together tomorrow. Tonight, they live.

Noah's glasses are skewed and his suit is rumpled as he walks beneath the big top. His eyes dart back and forth, restless with suspicion. It takes Tracy holding out her hand to him, the rushing water beneath her fingers subtly caressing his wrist, to get him to lower his guard. He melts into her arms as though he were the one made of water. Certainly he sweats like a block of ice, and then they flow seamlessly together.

The clock ticks closer to midnight, and spurred by the sound, Nathan twirls Lydia faster. She spins and laughs, and when Edgar's hands meet Nathan's on her hips, it's only more exciting, more feverish. Her lips sear them both with fire, and the veils begin to fall away.

Peter vaguely recalls feeling this way once before, intrigued and frightened. He remembers another man who came out of nowhere and changed his life. Now Samuel is running a hand over his chest beneath his shirt, and another hand beneath his belt, and Peter's thinking of Claude, rain and remembrance and the feeling of falling.

Charlie's eyes open wide, and she wants to ask Hiro where he's brought her. This place is frightening, she says. Hiro nods. He closes his eyes, ready to wink them out of this place, but then Charlie kisses him and he forgets to teleport. She tells him she wants to stay. There's a wild danger in her voice, and he knows how she's feeling. It might be their last night alive.

Faster now, faster still, and Noah has long since discarded the glasses. His sight trampled somewhere in the sawdust, he sees Tracy only as a blur of pink above him, now around him. He shuts out sight altogether and just feels the things they're doing, the fierce liquid heat of her body and the lava at his own core. He's with her. He's not lonely. He's not missing his wife, or his job, or anything he's left behind. He's been chasing this, and here it is -- a now that's worth living for.

Near midnight, and Jeremy is learning through Rebecca's skilled and unseen hand that _le petit mort_ is a far better death to give than the permanent kind. Edgar's hips stab sure as any knife. Lydia wails. And Samuel watches his delightful carnival all around him, man-beasts and sirens and contortionists all providing every manner of earthly delight. They always perform for him, but tonight he is not just their leader but their customer.

A minute left, and Peter has found a familiar face in the crowd.

"You're Sylar," he whispers.

"So they tell me." Nathan touches the smooth skin of his face and knows it. Peter knows the touch too.

"But you're Nathan," he murmurs, puzzled, brow furrowing as he turns to kiss that palm.

"Yes," Nathan says, "I think I am."

As all distance between them melts away, midnight strikes, a bell clear and tolling in the far distance.

Peter wakes up in New York and wonders what it means to dream his brother is a killer. After a while he sits down to read a book and consigns it to the strangeness of Halloween. But it will haunt him for a while yet.

Tracy wonders if she should call Noah, but then decides not to. For his part, Noah wonders if this means he's getting over Sandra. He hopes not.

Inside the circus tent, Rebecca sighs and stretches. What a shame, she thinks to herself, what a loss, that some have to die and others can't. The world is all wrong.

A few years ago, Hiro's ashamed of himself for having a wet dream about beautiful Charlie.

Samuel just watches the world turn around him.


End file.
